A little help for your friends

Your group subscription could yield tacos and tequila

If you’re not a paying subscriber, you this week missed out on an investigation of car crashes inside restaurants. But paid and unpaid readers alike should scroll on for happier news!

Notice anything different here this morning?

Well, for one thing, now it’s just us in the room. My Substack support officially ended yesterday, which means I’ll no longer get quarterly checks from the company.

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On the upside, I’ll get to keep 90 percent of my subscription revenue, same as every other publisher on the platform: During the yearlong grant period, Substack took a 90 percent cut.

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Regarding that revenue, my aim was to acquire 680 paying subscribers by today. We didn’t quite get there, but we’re not too far off the sustainability mark.

So now, more than ever, we’re in this together. And what better way to celebrate our solidarity in supporting independent journalism than a group subscription?

Starting today, The Food Section is available at a deep discount to readers who band together. For $250, you can register five email addresses as part of a shared subscription plan. Each participant will receive the full benefits of being a paid annual subscriber, including emails on Mondays and Wednesdays, access to the newsletter’s complete archives, an invitation to The Food Section’s private Facebook group, and the opportunity to attend subscriber-only events.

This is a great deal for companies, nonprofits, extended families, and groups of friends unified by their enthusiasm for Southern food.

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There’s no requirement that everyone in a group shares the same domain name, so it could be the perfect solution for members of your book club, Klezmer combo, fraternity, or pickleball league.

Is it possible to improve upon this offer? Why, yes—thanks to the generosity of paying subscriber Brooke Warden, who got in touch because she was looking to support The Food Section’s work.

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When you purchase a group subscription to The Food Section, you’ll receive 15 raffle tickets for an all-expenses paid, private tacos-and-tequila party at Pink Cactus, Brooke’s restaurant in downtown Charleston.

The winner will be able to fete 34 guests for two hours on a chosen Sunday or Monday, which sounds like a heck of a holiday party. Or birthday party. Or book club meeting.

Of course, readers who have supported The Food Section from the start deserve a shot at this fun too. Paying subscribers can buy raffle tickets for $10 apiece, which might work out to be the best deal of all: Just imagine entertaining dozens of people for less than the cost of a single serving of guac.

Non-subscribers can also buy individual raffle tickets for $25 apiece (which is intentionally more expensive than the $19 you’d pay for a one-month subscription and a subscriber’s raffle ticket.)

I look forward to telling you more in a future Friday newsletter about Brooke and her restaurant. But for now, the most important thing to know is raffle ticket sales end on Friday, October 7 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Don’t miss this chance to get your gang together!

Take care,

Hanna

1. Speaking of yesterday, it also brought another award nomination for The Food Section: This newsletter is up for the Best New Business prize given out by Local Independent Online News (LION) Publishers.

2. If you’re wondering how that worked out, Substack got back about half of its investment.

3. The subscription slots belong to the group administrator, meaning you can switch up email addresses during the subscription term. For example, if auntsuzy@msn.com doesn’t have enough time to keep up with the newsletter, you can reassign her sub to unclebert@att.net.

4. Got to love the initiative! If you’re looking for ways to support The Food Section, we can find something that works for you. Email me at readthefoodsection@gmail.com.